A recent graduate of New World School of the Arts, Liony Garcia is a young choreographer with decadent, old-world obsessions. Like Italian giallo cinema, that sexy, creepy genre where masked men wield knives in gloved hand to bloody beautiful young women in black lace. "Giallo is the equivalent of slasher films here in the States," Garcia explains. "The films feature eroticism, horror, and crime."

Giallo is one inspiration for Garcia's Clandestine, a piece commissioned by the Miami Light Project and featured at the Miami Made Festival this weekend. Eleven dancers move to music lifted directly from giallo classics such as Mario Bava's 1963 The Girl Who Knew Too Much and 1964 Blood and Black Lace. For "Clandestine," that's all mixed in with tracks from the experimental noise band, I.U.D.

To keep up, the dancers have to work hard. "The movement is about being

victimized," Garcia says. "It's exhausting for the performers. That's

the quality I'm going for."

Another inspiration, Garcia hints, is his own life. "Clandestine," he

says, "looks at how promiscuity could destroy the individual." The

storyline follows one young woman (played by New World senior Kaitlin

Bishop) from temptation through sex to self-destruction.

Okay, and where does his life come in?

Garcia laughs. "The theme started with images at first," he says. "Now

that I'm physicalizing ideas, it's clear that this was a moment in time

in my own life. Now it's coming out in this warped way."

The Miami Made Festival runs from March 4th through 6th at the Carnival

Studio at the Arsht Center (1300 Biscayne Blvd). Liony Garcia's

"Clandestine" will be performed at 9:15 p.m. on Saturday and 3:15 p.m.